(Enterprise) An enterprise engineering approach for the

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(Enterprise) An enterprise engineering approach for thealignment of business and IT strategy

Llanos Cuenca, Andres Boza, Angel Ortiz

To cite this version:Llanos Cuenca, Andres Boza, Angel Ortiz. (Enterprise) An enterprise engineering approach for thealignment of business and IT strategy. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing,Taylor & Francis, 2011, pp.1. �10.1080/0951192X.2011.579172�. �hal-00721641�

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(Enterprise) An enterprise engineering approach for the alignment of business and IT strategy

Journal: International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing

Manuscript ID: TCIM-2011-IJCIM-0016.R1

Manuscript Type: Special Issue Paper

Date Submitted by the Author:

21-Mar-2011

Complete List of Authors: Cuenca, Llanos; Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Research Centre on Production Management and Engineering (CIGIP), Department of Business Organization Boza, Andres; Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Research Centre on Production Management and Engineering (CIGIP), Department of Business Organization Ortiz, Angel; Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Research Centre on Production Management and Engineering (CIGIP), Department of Business Organization

Keywords: ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURES, ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION, STRATEGY, INFORMATION SYSTEMS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Keywords (user): Enterprise Engineering, Business and IT Strategic Alignment

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tandf/tcim Email:[email protected]

International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing

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An enterprise engineering approach for the alignment of business and

IT strategy

Ll. CUENCA, A. BOZA and A. ORTIZ

Research Centre on Production Management and Engineering (CIGIP), Universitat

Politècnica de València

Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia - Spain

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

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An enterprise engineering approach for the alignment of business

and IT strategy

IS/IT (hereafter just IT) strategies usually depend on a business strategy. The alignment

of both strategies improves their strategic plans. From an external perspective, business

and IT alignment is the extent to which the IT strategy enables and drives the business

strategy. This paper reviews strategic alignment between business and IT and proposes

the use of enterprise engineering to achieve this alignment. The enterprise engineering

approach facilitates the definition of a formal dialog in the alignment design. In relation

to this, new building blocks and life-cycle phases have been defined for their use in an

enterprise architecture context. This proposal has been adopted in a critical process of a

ceramic tile company for the purpose of aligning a strategic business plan and IT

strategy, which are essential to support this process.

Keywords: Enterprise Engineering, Business and IT Strategic Alignment, Enterprise

Architecture Framework

1. Introduction

While potentially offering significant returns, incorporating information systems and

information technology (IT) into organizations involves considerable risks, and these

risks increase when a strategic plan for this incorporation is not provided. Aligning IT

strategy and business strategy is a key process in maintaining business value

(Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993; Hirschheim and Sabherwal, 2001; Sabherwal et

al., 2001; Peppard and Breu, 2003; Luftman and Ben-Zvi, 2010). Enterprise

engineering facilitates formal dialog in enterprise design. The purpose of this paper is

to present how these benefits can be translated to strategic alignment by applying an

engineering approach. Business and IT strategic alignment engineering is a process

involving architecting and designing strategic alignment.

Enterprise architectures enable alignment in significant ways (Gregor et al.,

2007): 1) business and information systems can be modelled together in a common

organizational framework. In this case, business and IT domains are integrated and

made visible in a common framework, 2) the current and future states of the business

and IT are defined and described in detail. The gap analysis between the “as is” and

the “to be” states provides a basis for strategic, operational and resource planning.

Deleted: E

Deleted: I

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The Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993)

draws a distinction between the external environment of business strategy and IT

strategy; and the internal environment focusing on organizational infrastructure and

processes, and IT infrastructure and process. On the other hand, there are two kinds of

relationships between the involved domains: (1) strategic fit describing the

interrelationship between the external and internal environments of the same domain

(“business” or “IT” domain) and (2) functional integration describing the link

between the “business” and “IT” domains (Avila et al., 2009).

The importance of IT is reflected by the way it participates in the strategy

formulation process. The information technology function should become more

influential during the creation of business strategies. The trend is to integrate IT into

the formal strategy framework (Luftman et al., 1993). However in the enterprise

engineering approach, the enterprise architectures (EA) for enterprise modelling have

traditionally focused on only functional integration from an internal point of view in

an attempt to solve the problem of the alignment between organizational

infrastructure and IT infrastructure to facilitate the implementation and execution of

business processes (e.g., CIMOSA(Amice, 1993) and Zachman framework (Sowa and

Zachman, 1992)). In relation to strategic fit, EA has attempted to solve this problem

by extending its focus, mainly on the business domain (e.g., GERAM (IFIP/IFAC,

1999) and IE-GIP (Ortiz et al., 1999)), so the IT strategy definition remains an open

problem in the EA and enterprise engineering field. In this sense, it is difficult to

establish alignment from the external perspective between the business strategy and

the IT strategy.

This paper uses an enterprise engineering approach to review alignment by

identifying the gaps and needs between business and IT strategic alignment. To go

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about this, new building blocks and new life-cycle phases, which are to be used in

enterprise engineering, have been defined to establish this alignment in accordance

with ISO 15704 (2000) and ISO 19440 (CEN 19440, 2007), to include both the

concepts used in methodologies and references architectures within an encompassing

conceptual framework that allows the coverage and completeness of such approach.

This paper is organized as follows: firstly, Section 2 introduces the enterprise

engineering and enterprise architecture concepts. Section 3 offers a review of business

and the IT strategic alignment. Section 4 identifies the relationships between

alignment and enterprises architecture. Next, Section 5 proposes the enterprise

engineering approach for the external perspective of business and IT alignment by

identifying new life-cycle phases, the building blocks required and the associated

templates to be defined. Section 6 describes the proposed framework which is applied

in a ceramic tile company. Finally, Section 7 provides a summary of the conclusions.

2. Enterprise engineering and enterprise architecture

Enterprise engineering (EE) concerns the analysis, optimization and re-engineering of

all or part of the business processes, information systems and organization structures

in an enterprise or an enterprise network (Vernadat, 1996). EE concept can also be

used to align the corporate strategies with the use of product lifecycle management

technologies (Penaranda et al., 2009). According to Hoogervorst (2009), the

engineering approach offers important benefits such as: (1) a formal approach for

addressing organized complexity as well as the realization of a unified and integrated

design, (2) the formal identification of all coordination actions defines clear

responsibilities.

To ensure that this design is carried out coherently, the enterprise architecture

concept arises. Enterprise architecture (EA) is defined as a way to structure and

Comment [l1]: New IJCIM reference

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New IJCIM reference

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design the company’s organization and operations. Architecture makes operation

description possible (with different levels of detail) and provides a relevant modelling

process (Cuenca et al., 2006). EA is a coherent set of principles, methods and models

used in the design of an enterprise’s organizational structure, business processes,

information systems and infrastructure (Lankhorst, 2004). EA is the outcome, albeit

an evolving one, of a strategic planning and management process to which an

enterprise architecture framework is applied to describe both the current (as-is) and

future (to-be) states (Tang et al., 2004).

The framework applied to the enterprise is a logical structure used for

classifying and organizing the enterprise’s descriptive representations, which are

significant for both its management and the development of its systems (Inmon et al.,

1997).

The framework should also simplify enterprise architecture development since

it helps to articulate how the different components of the enterprise architecture relate

to one another (Martin and Robertson, 2004; Bittler and Kreizman, 2005). The

framework should provide a general mechanism for defining views. Views are used in

enterprise modelling because the complexity of an enterprise makes it impossible for

a single descriptive representation to be humanly comprehensible in its entirety

(Martin and Robertson, 2004).

Another adjacent concept to EA is Enterprise Modelling (EM). EM describes

in detail the EA from various viewpoints and permits the specification and

implementation of systems (Chen et al., 2008). According to Vernadat (1996), EM is

the set of activities or processes used to develop the various parts of an enterprise

model to address a given modelling purpose. The use of these models in enterprise

Formatted: Highlight

Deleted: and realization

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engineering can cut design times and improve modelling consistency (Chen and

Vernadat, 2004).

Enterprise models have a life cycle that is related to the life cycle of the

modelled entity. The life cycle of an enterprise model is the result of the model

development process by which models are created, made operational and finally

discarded (CEN 19439, 2006). EM uses modelling languages, methods and tools

chosen according to the enterprise’s life-cycle phase (or life cycle activity). The life

cycle of a business entity can be represented in enterprise reference architectures or

architecture frameworks (IFIP/IFAC Task Force, 1999). A modelling language

construct or building block is a textual or graphical part of a modelling language

devised to represent the diverse information on common properties and elements of a

collection of enterprise entities in an orderly way. Building blocks provide common

semantics and enable the unification of the models developed by different

stakeholders in the various model development phases. They may be specialized

and/or organized into structures for specific purposes; for example, for an industry

sector or for a particular kind of enterprise concern such as maintenance. In turn, such

structures and/or generic modelling language constructs can be used for developing

particular models for a specific enterprise (CEN 19440, 2007). Several architecture

frameworks exist today, and they all have a modelling framework organizing

enterprise model, which may have to be created during the life of a business entity

(Bernus et al., 2003).

The relationships between the elements described above are shown in Figure

1.

‘Insert Figure 1 here’

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According to the IFIP/IFAC Task Force (1999) and ISO 15704 (2000), there

are two types of architectures: system architectures (sometimes referred to as Type 1

architectures) that deal with the design of a system, e.g., the part of a system in overall

enterprise integration. The other type of architecture is enterprise reference projects

(sometimes referred to as Type 2 architectures) that deal with the organization of the

development and implementation of a project, such as enterprise integration or other

enterprise development programs. In other words, Type 1 architectures represent the

system or sub-system in terms of its structure and behaviour. Type 2 architectures are

actually frameworks whose aim is to structure the concepts and activities/tasks

required to design and build a system. These Type 2 architectures are mainly devised

throughout the system’s life cycle to show what has to be done to model, design, and

implement an integrated enterprise system (Chen et al., 2008).

Examples of Type 1 architectures are: ENV 13550 Enterprise Model

Execution and Integration Services (EMEIS), Manufacturing Automation

Programming Environment and Open Management Architecture (CORBA)

Among the Type 2 architectures, the most well-known are: the Computer

Integrated Manufacturing Open System Architecture (CIMOSA) (Amice, 1993), the

Purdue Enterprise-Reference Architecture (PERA) (Williams et al., 1996), the GIM

architecture (Doumeingts et al., 1992), GERAM (IFIP/IFAC, 1999), IE-GIP (Ortiz et

al., 1999), in the reference architectures; and the Zachman framework (Sowa and

Zachman, 1992), TOGAF (Open Group, 2009), DoDAF (DoD AF, 2007), Enterprise

Architecture Planning (EAP) (Spewak, 1993), Integrated Architecture Framework

(IAF) (Schekkerman, 2003), and the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework

(FEAF) (CIO, 1999) architectures that have emerged in the field of information

systems.

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Type 2 architectures identify and define different views. The number of views

differs in each EA. The most common are: Business, Resource, Organization,

Information, Data, Application, and Technological Views.

The Business View contains the business processes and business entities in a

company; the Resource View comprises capabilities and resources; the Organization

View comprises organization levels, authority and responsibility; the Information

View contains input and output process; the Data View defines the types and data

sources needed to support the Information View; the Application View identifies the

application needs and data presentation; finally, the Technological View determines

the technology to be used and defines how this technology should be used.

All enterprise architectures contain views within their frameworks; however,

life cycles, building blocks and how the building blocks fit together, are not defined

by them all, thus making the alignment between components difficult (Cuenca et al.,

2010). To enhance and facilitate alignment, this proposal not only defines the building

blocks, but indicates in which life-cycle phase and modelling view they will be

assigned.

3. Business and IT strategic alignment

The information systems of an organization consist of the information technology

infrastructure, data, application systems, and personnel that employ IT to deliver

information and communications services in an organization (Davis, 2000). Thus, the

IS concept combines both the technical components and human activities within the

organization, and also describes the process of managing the life cycle of

organizational IS practices (Avgerou and McGrath, 2007). Information systems can

improve the organization’s competitiveness through a well-defined set of resources

for the construction, composition and implementation of a competitive advantage for

Comment [l2]: We agree with the Referee, these authors have been included to enrich the definitions with up-

to-date references, and Henderson and Venkatraman are referenced below.

.

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We agree with the Referee, these authors have been included to enrich the definitions with up-to-date references, and Henderson and Venkatraman are referenced below. .

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the company (Porter, 1980; MacFarlan, 1984). Strategy is a broad-based formula for

the way the business is going to compete, what its goals should be, and what policies

should be carried out to achieve these goals. The essence of formulating competitive

strategy lies in relating a company to its environment (Porter, 1980).

Two approaches deal with Business and IT strategic alignment: (1) Strategic

IS planning (SISP) (King, 1978; Ang et al., 1995; Hartono et al., 2003; Newkirk and

Lederer, 2006; Silvius, 2007) and (2) IT alignment (Henderson and Vekatraman,

1993; Luftman et al., 1993; Bergeron et al, 2004; Avison et al., 2004; Chen et al.,

2005; Wegmann et al., 2005; Derzsi and Gordijn, 2006; Bleistein et al., 2006; Vargas

et al., 2008).

Strategic IS planning consists of the development of various methodologies

that incorporate the strategic objectives of the corporation into the information

systems plan while attempting to create management information systems (MIS)

applications that will improve the corporation's competitive position (Ang et al.,

1995).

Business and IT alignment is the extent to which the IT strategy enables and

drives the business strategy (Luftman et al., 1993; Reich and Benbasat, 2000).

According to Reich and Benbasat (1996), IS-Business alignment is defined as the

extent to which the IT mission, objectives, and plans support and are supported by the

business mission, objectives and plans. In this definition, objectives refer to the goals

and strategies of an organizational unit. Luftman (2000) defines IS-Business

alignment as applying IT appropriately and in a timely way in harmony with business

strategies, goals and needs. It can be addressed by these two questions: (1) how is IT

aligned with business and; (2) how should or could business be aligned with IT.

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Mature alignment evolves into a relationship where IT and other business functions

adapt their strategies together.

A number of strategic alignment models have been proposed. The two key

models that have attracted most attention from researchers are (Avison et al., 2004):

the MIT90s model (Scott Morton, 1991) and the Strategic Alignment Model (SAM)

(Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993).

According to the MIT90 model, for an organization to fully capture IT value,

IT should be aligned with business strategy, structure, management processes, as well

as with individuals and roles. The MIT90 dimensions affected are: (1) IT structure,

processes and individuals and roles are unaligned with the business strategy (2) there

is some alignment of processes and roles, yet the IT structure is still largely unaligned,

(3) further alignment of IT processes and roles, (4) the IT structure is aligned with

business strategy, processes and roles, (5) IT supports the business strategy.

The MIT90s model identifies conceptual integration among the different

change factors and demonstrates one ‘classic’ route that firms may follow. The

MIT90s model argues that a successful organization has a high fit among its strategy,

structure, roles and skills, management processes and technology, and between that

configuration and its business environment (Scott Morton 1991). The ‘classical’ or

conventional alignment model starts with a change in strategy. This changes structure

which, in turn, leads to change in processes, technology and individuals and roles.

According to Sakka et al. (2010), and in comparison with the MIT’90 model,

SAM makes a distinction between the external perspective of IT (IT strategy) and the

internal focus of IT (IT infrastructure and process).

SAM (Figure 2) is composed of four quadrants that consist of three

components each. These twelve components define what each quadrant is as far as

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alignment is concerned. All the components working together determine the extent of

alignment for the company being assessed (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993; Papp,

2001, Sakka et al., 2010).

The four quadrants are (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993):

• Business strategy at the external level of the business domain. It is structured by three components: business scope, business competencies and business

governance.

• Organizational infrastructure and processes that form the internal level of the business area. This domain is composed of three components: administrative

infrastructure, skills and business processes.

• IT strategy at the external level of the IT domain. It is structured by three components: technology scope, systemic competencies and IT governance.

• IT infrastructure and processes that form the internal level of the IT area.

Likewise, it is formed by three components: IT architecture, IT skills and IT

processes.


There is a total of twelve perspectives or types of relationship toward the

alignment of business and IT which include four fusion perspectives. The four

original perspectives, as described by Henderson and Venkatraman (1993), are: (1)

strategic execution: this perspective views the business strategy as the driver of

organization and IT infrastructure; (2) technology potential: this perspective views the

business strategy as the driver of an IT strategy to support the chosen business

strategy and the required IT infrastructure; (3) competitive potential: this alignment

perspective is concerned with the exploitation of emerging IT capabilities to impact

new products and services; (4) service level: in this perspective, the business strategy

role is indirect. The four new non-fusion perspectives are, (5) organization IT

infrastructure: this perspective results in process improvements from information

technology and the application of value to the business processes; (6) IT infrastructure

strategy: the focus of this perspective is the improvement of the information

technology strategy based on the implementation of emerging and existing

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information technology infrastructures; (7) IT organization infrastructure: in this

perspective, IT is the driving force and architect by which visions and processes are

carried out; (8) organization infrastructure strategy: this perspective exploits the

capabilities to enhance new products and services, influence strategy, and develop

new relationships. In fusion, the pivot and the anchor domain are not adjacent to one

another, but rather across from each other on the diagonal. The fusion perspectives

are: (9) organization strategy fusion: results from the combination of IT organization

infrastructure and IT infrastructure strategy perspectives, which both impact the

business strategy. The basis of this fusion perspective is that it is technology driven,

that IT is a solution and that it plays a dominant role in the business; (10) the

organization infrastructure fusion perspective. This fusion combines the competitive

potential and service level perspectives whose result is an anchor of IT strategy and

organization infrastructure being the impact area. This fusion perspective is based on

the performance of IT and the organization’s determination of its value; (11)

Information technology strategy fusion is the third fusion perspective. It results from

combining the organizational IT infrastructure and the organizational infrastructure

strategy. This perspective explains to top level management how IT must be

developed to bring into effect a strategic change in the business. The final fusion

perspective is (12) the information technology infrastructure fusion perspective. It

results from the combination of the strategy execution and technology potential

perspectives. The focus of this perspective is a new, emerging IT architecture which is

the cost of success in the business’ future (Papp and Luftman, 1995; Luftman et al.,

1993; Coleman and Papp, 2006).

Other approaches have addressed business and IT alignment (Chen, 2007).

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• Via Architecture: (1) software architecture: BITAM (Chen et al., 2005), etc. (2) enterprise architecture: the Zachman framework (Sowa and Zachman, 1992),

TOGAF (Open Group, 2009), DoD (DoDAF, 2007), FEAF (CIO, 1999), etc.

• Via Governance: (1) business performance management: balanced scorecard

(Kaplan and Norton, 1996), (2) IT governance: COBIT (ITIG, 2005) service

management: ITIL, Maturity Model (Luftman et al., 2010), etc.

The enterprise architecture approach corresponds to the objective of this paper

and will be discussed in the next section. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) for the

remaining proposals is, primarily, a strategy management tool; so it rarely works

without top-level executive sponsorship. If companies skip the initial step of mapping

out a business strategy with clear cause-and-effect relationships, they can end up

measuring factors that do not link to business performance (Chen et al., 2005). BSC

concepts have been applied to the IT function and its processes. The corporate

contribution perspective evaluates the performance of the IT organization from the

executive management viewpoint. The customer orientation perspective evaluates IT

performance from the internal business users’ viewpoint. The operational excellence

perspective provides the IT processes performance from the IT management

viewpoint. The future perspective shows the readiness for future challenges of the IT

organization itself (Van Grembergen and De Haes, 2005.); COBIT: the ITGI (IT

Governance Institute) has developed a framework to control information technology

under the name of Control Objectives for Information and related Technology

(COBIT), this provides organizations with a set of guidelines for implementing IT

governance controls in technology processes. ITIL: The Information Technology

Infrastructure Library was published by the British Government. IT service

management refers to the provision of IT services and the support needed to suit the

organization’s business needs. ITIL provides a set of best practices for IT service

management. The alignment maturity model provides a comprehensive vehicle for



Comment [l3]: Reference inserted: Luftman J., Ben-Zvi T. Dwivedi R.,

Rigoni E. IT Governance: An Alignment Maturity Perspective 2010. International Journal on IT/Business Alignment and

Governance, 1(2), 13-25.

Deleted: 00

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Reference inserted: Luftman J., Ben-Zvi T. Dwivedi R., Rigoni E. IT Governance: An Alignment Maturity Perspective 2010. International Journal on IT/Business Alignment and Governance, 1(2), 13-25.

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organizations to evaluate business-IT alignment in terms of where they are and what

they can do to improve alignment (Luftman, 2000).

The starting point for the proposal will be enterprise architectures and how

they address the business and IT strategic alignment. In this paper we will centre on

those perspectives where the business strategy or IT strategy is the anchor domain,

which correspond to the four original perspectives described by Henderson and

Venkatraman, as well as to the fusion perspectives: organization infrastructure fusion

and IT infrastructure fusion. These are the perspectives relating with the IT strategy,

and this is poorly defined in the enterprise architecture approach.

4. Business and IT strategic alignment in enterprise architecture

According to Chen (2007), the enterprise architecture approach does not define how

to align and what to align. In this sense, we have analyzed whether some perspectives

of alignment are taken into account in enterprise architectures, as well as the different

components to be modelled. As shown below, in reference architectures for enterprise

modelling, strategic alignment is conducted from a business strategy to the

organizational infrastructure, and the IT strategy is hardly defined. So, it is necessary

to improve the definition of the IT strategy and the alignment with business strategy

in enterprise architecture.

Of the different proposals for enterprise architectures, we have selected the

most relevant in the research area and its implementation in enterprises (Whitman et

al., 2001; Vasconcelos et al., 2004; Narman et al., 2007; Greefhorst et al., 2006, Chen

et al, 2008). The analysis was carried out by partially following the proposal of Avila

et al. (2009) which identifies between two other aspects to be analyzed: Alignment

Sequence (Table 1) and Involved Domain (Table 2).

Comment [l4]: This explanation has been added

Deleted: .

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4.1 Alignment Sequence

The involved domains can be classified as an anchor domain, a pivot domain

or an impacted domain. The anchor domain is the greatest strength among the four

domains. This is the area that drives the changes to be applied to the pivot domain.

The pivot domain is the area that will receive focus, and where the changes will be

addressed by the anchor quadrant. The impacted domain will be directly affected by

the change made to the pivot domain (Henderson and Venkatrama, 1993; Luftman et

al., 1993). As mentioned above, in this paper we consider the business strategy or IT

strategy as an anchor domain.

Based on this classification, the main enterprise architectures have been analyzed.

‘Insert table 1 here’

In the table above, we can see how most of the proposals addressing the

business architecture sequence alignment with the business strategy “anchor domain”

have an impact on IT infrastructure and processes, which means that IT will be seen

as an element supporting the organization, and not as a competitive advantage. In

some enterprise architectures, the IT strategy acts as an “anchor domain”, but does not

direct the business strategy. Moreover, the reference architectures (GERAM and IE-

GIP) do not identify the elements associated with the IT strategy, but only those

covered by the first sequence.

4.2 Involved Domain

According to Avila et al. (2009), the involved domains correspond to “What domains

should be aligned toward the IS domain?” For each involved domain, Table 2 shows

the life-cycle phases of enterprise architectures involved in their establishment.

There are proposals such as those by Zachman or DoD whose modelling

frameworks do not include life-cycle stages; however, several studies have

Deleted: .

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established close relationships with all the phases defined by GERAM, thus

identifying them as life-cycle stages (Noran, 2003, Noran, 2005; Saha, 2004).

Table 2 shows the lack of definition of the IT strategy in the referenced

architectures. The life-cycle phases defined by these architectures do not include those

that allow the definition of the IT strategy, which will be precisely the aim of

implementing this proposal.


For each life-cycle phase associated with each Involved Domain, the

modelling language used may be identified (as indicated in Figure 1).

The life-cycle phases in enterprise modelling follow a sequential process

beginning with the business strategy formulation. This formulation will be done in the

identification and conceptualization phases (GERAM, IE-IP, TOGAF, EAP, IAF, B-

SCP and BITAM) or in the business architecture (FEAF, DoDAF and Zachman).

When the business strategy is defined, we can continue defining the elements in

organization infrastructure and processes (perspective 1) or with the IT strategy

(perspective 2). Some enterprise architectures allow the fourth perspective to be

followed (service level), TOGAF includes the Architecture Development Method

(ADM) cycle. The ADM can be adapted, for example, if the business case for doing

architecture at all is not well recognized, thus the creation of an architecture vision is

almost always essential; moreover, a detailed business architecture often needs to

come next to underpin the architecture vision, to detail the business case for the

remaining architecture work, and to also secure the active participation of key

stakeholders in that work. In other cases, a slightly different order may be preferred;

for example, a detailed inventory of the baseline environment may be done before

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undertaking the Business Architecture (Open Group, 2009). However it is not

possible to follow perspective 3.

One of the benefits of enterprise engineering is that it allows a more formal

definition of the various elements of the enterprise system by modelling together

business and IT.

In this proposal, building blocks are used as a modelling language to obtain

this benefit and to establish a formal definition. According to ISO 19440 (CEN19440,

2007), each building block is associated with a given life-cycle phase and modelling

view. For GERAM and IE-GIP, it is necessary to define new life-cycle phases that

allow the modelling of the IT strategy and the alignment with the business strategy

into which the new building block is incorporated.

4.3. Related Works

This section presents other proposals that relate alignment models with enterprise

architectures.

Wegmann et al. (2005) proposes an EA framework and an associated tool that

provide alignment checking throughout the functional and organizational hierarchies.

This framework does not include strategic alignment.

Pereira and Sousa (2005) show how the alignment between business and IT

can be disaggregated into four different dimensions, which present some heuristics to

ensure such an alignment. These authors do not include strategic alignment, and the

heuristics is a permanent list.

Plazaola et al. (2007) proposes a meta-model based on Luftman’s strategic

business and information technology alignment. This proposal facilitates the

relationship to enterprise architecture through the definition of artifacts for modelling

Luftman’s maturity model. Luftman’s theory diagram is constructed by representing

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the criteria, attributes and alignment level for each attribute expressed by its set of

conditions and properties. Each alignment level has a causal relationship to the

corresponding attribute, while attributes have a composition relationship with their

corresponding criterion. However, benefits will only become important once the

alignment assessment has been incorporated into an organization; using the model as

a prescriptive tool. On the other hand, the following questions remain unsolved: How

does the EA integrate with the other components? Who does the analysis? What form

does evolution take?

Wang et al. (2008) propose an Enterprise Architecture Development Method

(EADM) to develop enterprise architectures with a view to covering business and IT

needs. They provide no formal definition of the EA framework and how to define the

IT strategy and strategic alignment.

The proposal presented in this article overcomes the gaps identified in

previously related works.

5. Enterprise engineering approach for the external perspective of business and

IT alignment

This section includes the proposed business and IT strategic alignment using

enterprise engineering. Firstly, the main IT strategy components have been identified.

Secondly, these components have been considered to define the new building blocks

to be used in an enterprise architecture context.

5.1 IT strategy components

It is necessary to identify what elements must be included in the IT strategy for them

to be later included in the enterprise architecture framework. These elements

correspond to Henderson and Venkatraman's components and Luftman's components;

moreover, we have extended the review to identify the new elements to be taken into

Formatted: Follow-on paragraphstyle

Formatted: Font color: Auto

Formatted: Font color: Red

Deleted: The proposal presented in this article overcomes the previously identified problems

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account. Strategy can be implemented through the strategic management process

components (Hill and Jones, 2001): (1) vision: an end-state toward which the

organization strives, (2) mission: it defines what we should be doing. The

organization’s primary activity that achieves the vision, (3) goal: it defines where we

are going. An abstract statement of intent whose achievement supports the vision, (4)

strategy: it defines what routes we have selected; that is, the long-term activity

designed to achieve a goal.

Moreover, and as mentioned previously, the IT strategy at the external level is

structured by three components: technology scope, capability and skills and IT

governance (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993).

• Technology scope: scope is defined as the set of specific technologies that support

the business strategy or which may shape new strategic initiatives in the future.

• Capability and skills: capability and skill or systems competencies are those

attributes of IT strategy that could contribute positively to the creation of new

business strategies or better support of existing business strategies.

• IT Governance: governance refers to the organizational mechanisms required to

obtain the required competencies.

To do this review, the online literature (Compendex, IEEE Xplore, Inspec,

NASA via SCIRUS, Science Direct and Web of Science) was searched using the

following search terms: strategy, strategic alignment, business strategy, IT strategy, IS

strategy, strategic planning of information systems.

Table 3 shows part of the analytical results, and presents three new

components in addition to those defined by Henderson and Venkatraman: portfolio,

maturity model, and data strategy.


• Portfolio: an application portfolio is defined as a collection of projects and/or programs and other works grouped together to facilitate effective management to

meet the strategic business objectives (PMI, 2006). Projects tend not fully relate

with the organization’s strategic objectives so the portfolio consideration is

important in early life-cycle phases.

Comment [l5]: In accordance with the referee ‘s wishes, the description of

the Henderson and Venkatraman has

been included

Deleted: (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993).

Deleted: A capability is more than an organizational resource, or combination

of resources it is the organization’s ability

to mobilize resources and other capabilities to accomplish an

organizational objective (Adams et al.,

2004). In this case, capability and skill refer to the set of capabilities associated with information technology

Deleted: (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993). It refers to the governing policies and principles that

exist within the organization to guide the IT operating activities (Adams et al., 2004)

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In accordance with the referee ‚s wishes, the description of the Henderson and Venkatraman has been included

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• Alignment Maturity Model: maturity models are a suitable vehicle to be used by cross-organizational collaborations to gain a deeper understanding of how they

progress toward better business-IT alignment (Santana et al., 2008). According to

Luftman (2000), this model involves five levels of strategic alignment maturity:

(1) Initial/Ad Hoc Process, (2) Committed Process, (3) Established Focused

Process, (4) Improved/Managed Process, (5) Optimized Process. All five levels of

alignment maturity focus on a set of alignment criteria. These six criteria are: 1.

Communications Maturity, 2. Competency/Value Measurement Maturity, 3.

Governance Maturity, 4. Partnership Maturity, 5. Scope & Architecture Maturity,

6. Skills Maturity.

• Data Strategy: data are the facts about objects, events or other entities. They will

be associated with data sources and how these data are retrieved and analyzed.

From an information management perspective, key data concerns are typically

associated with data protection/storage, and records management and regulatory

compliance (Buchanan and Gibb, 2007).

The summary table (Table 3) shows that even though each identified

component has been taken into account by several authors, no author explicitly

provides each and every one of them. The governance criterion in Lutman’s maturity

model includes the prioritization process and IT investment management attributes

which the application portfolio, which is represented in Figure 3 in light grey.

IT leadership may be defined as the ability of the CIO, or a similar role, to

articulate a vision for IT’s role in the company and to ensure that this vision is clearly

understood by the managers throughout the organization. If the CIO is not able to talk

in business-oriented terms at an executive level, their impact at that level will be

minimal (Van Grembergen and De Haes, 2010). Including data strategy and portfolio

components at the strategic level could facilitate this communication between

business and IT managers.

5.2 Building block and life cycle proposed

The IT strategy components identified must be incorporated into the enterprise

architecture framework to facilitate the IT strategic definition and alignment with the

business strategy. This paper defines it according to ISO 19440 (CEN 19440, 2007),

which provides a set of modelling elements for the unified framework. In some cases,

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building blocks inherit the standard, so new building blocks are not necessary; in

other cases, new building blocks have been elaborated.

It should be noted that some of the above-identified elements have no direct

translation to a building block, but will be the elements of a building block. This is the

case of the elements vision, mission, goal, strategy, and scope. These items are

included in the new building block IT Conceptualization. The other components are

associated with a building block. Capability and Skills, and Governance may be

modelled with existing building blocks in the standard, Role and Capability Set

building block in the case of Capability and Skill and Cell Organization, and the

Organization Unit building block in the case of governance. The corresponding

building blocks will be defined for the portfolio, the maturity model and the data

strategy building block (Table 4).


This proposal seeks to improve the IT strategy definition and its alignment

with business strategy elaborated on the proposed building blocks. It is not easy to

accomplish this alignment; therefore we propose a mechanism to assess the

integration between the business strategy and the IT strategy. The use of two

techniques is proposed:

• Alignment Heuristics: rules for reviewing the alignment of business and

technology at the strategic level. Heuristics is meant to warn that the situation will

require further analysis and justification.

• Correspondence Strategic: the use of the strategic dependency model and the

strategic relationships model of framework i * as a graphical representation of the

relationships of the dependencies between the actors.

The techniques used originate from the works of Pereira and Sousa (2005) and

Yu (1995), respectively. Both techniques are easy to use by those in charge of

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different areas, and can work in parallel with other existing methods or techniques in

the company, which justifies their choice.

In the business engineering approach that we follow in this paper, each

building block is associated with a view and modelling phase. It is, thus, necessary to

identify the exact modelling phase that will incorporate these building blocks. As

noted in the involved domains table (Table 2), there are no life-cycle phases

associated with the IT strategy in the GERAM reference architectures and in IE-GIP.

We therefore propose the definition of new phases. The IE-GIP context is

more complete than GERAM to be taken as a starting point. Moreover, the

conceptualization phase of GERAM was extended in IE-GIP to enable the definition

of the business strategy (business conceptualization phase), the as-is and to-be

processes (business process definition), and an action plan was established to change

the state (master plan). To facilitate the understanding of the life-cycle phases

proposed and their integration into IE-GIP, a similar name has been assigned to the

new phases but, in this case, IT has been applied. This extension is reflected in Figure

3 below:


The horizontal relationship in each phase shows the alignment between

business and IT. On the other hand, each phase is related with a previous one, and is

followed to enforce or review the plans provided (vertical relationships). In this

proposal, IT can take action as an anchor domain, a pivot domain and an impact

domain.

The content of each phase is explained in the next section.

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5.3 Building Block description and associated template

This section details the proposed building block purpose. Building blocks will

be described according to ISO 15704, and the following will be indicated for each

one:

• Description

• Purpose

• Where to use it

• Template

The template refers to those elements to be defined for each building block.

These elements may refer to individual attributes or to other building blocks. All the

templates have a common header which indicates the type (attribute that can be used

to group the instances of each building block), name, identification and design

responsible (responsibility for the design and maintenance engineering for this

building block).

IT conceptualization

Description: building block IT conceptualization is marked if the information

required to define the IT strategy has been completed. A joint analysis must also be

carried out with the business conceptualization.

Purpose: the purpose of this building block is for the company to confirm if the IT

strategy has been fully established. The purpose of this template is not to evaluate the

alignment, but to check if the corresponding elements of IT strategy have been

defined. The information associated with the mission, vision, critical success factors,

etc., will be defined by the participants assigned. IT objectives may precede the

formulation of business objectives and can be used as input to their development.

Conceptualization will be defined for the enterprise and for the business entity (whole

or part of a single or networked enterprise).

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Where to use it: the building block used in the IT conceptualization phase is

associated with the information view.

Template: Figure 4


Alignment heuristics

Description: with this building block, alignment heuristics is defined by indicating

the views involving the cells or organizational units participating in its definition, the

question associated with the heuristics, the answer value, as well as the response date.

Purpose: Alignment heuristics is used in this case to detect any weakness in the

business and IT alignment. By using this building block, different views are related by

an alignment question. The company will react with improvement actions depending

on the answer obtained. Examples of these questions can be: Does IT provide agility

in responding to changing business needs?, Does IT allow minimize operating costs?,

Does IT improve payment supplier relationships?

Where to use it: the building block is used in the IT conceptualization phase and is

associated with the technological view.

Template: Figure 5


Strategic dependencies model

Description: the strategic dependencies model is based on the i * framework (Yu,

1995). The strategic dependency building block represents the resource, plans, task or

goal dependencies among the different actors (roles, organizational units, organization

cells or set of roles). It also indicates whether or not dependency is critical for the

business entity. Strategic dependencies model identifies three elements 1) Dependee

Actor, who is depended upon on a dependency relationship; 2) Depender, the

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depending actor on a dependency relationship and 3) Dependum Element around

which a dependency relationship centres.

Purpose: the purpose is to detect any dependencies between the actors. It allows, for

example, the identification of bottlenecks with those actors whose dependency on

other actors is excessive. Moreover, the direction of the relationships can be mapped

into Venkatraman’s SAM sequences when the dependee belong to business area and

the depender belong to IT area, and conversely. For example the decision to deploy an

ERP (anchor domain) drives the changes to be applied to business strategy (pivot

domain).

Where to use it: the building block is used in the IT conceptualization phase and is

associated with the application view.

Template: Figure 6


Application Portfolio

Developing an IT portfolio is a dynamic process by which a company identifies the

current list of projects (applications and services) or new projects. The main feature is

that the portfolio progresses in the right direction to maximize the values it can

provide to the business. Each asset comprising the portfolio may be associated with

different types of strategic objectives, which can identify technological deficiencies

and weaknesses. A classification matrix can be used to illustrate how IT application or

services are allocated within the company (McFarlan, 1984). We propose to analyze

IT applications according to strategic importance by taking into account the dynamic

aspect of the portfolio and the focuses on the concept of alignment with strategic

business objectives and innovation in technology. Furthermore, the people making the

business decisions have, in many cases, little knowledge of the IT enablement they

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are asking for and what it can (and cannot) do for them. Changing this behaviour

requires organizations to better integrate their business planning process with their IT

planning process (Kaplan, 2005). The strategic orientation of the applications

portfolio may improve CEO/CIO mutual understanding and therefore facilitate the

alignment of an organization’s IT with its business strategy (Johnson and Lederer,

2010). To do this, three building blocks have been proposed: the as-is portfolio, the

to-be portfolio, and the applications and services portfolio that contains the to-be

applications or services to be implemented.

As-Is portfolio

Description: it represents the list of the business entity’s applications or services by

identifying the code and the expiry date of a new portfolio review, and the list of the

participants involved in the analysis of the applications or services. It also indicates if

it is associated with achieving a business goal, and assesses whether any of the

expected benefits have been obtained, plus their integration with other applications. It

also identifies the value assigned by the classification matrix and the improvement

actions proposed.

Purpose: the purpose of the portfolio of as-is applications and services is to support

the information associated with each application and its relation with the business

objectives.

Where it is used: in the IT process definition phase and is associated with the

technological view.

Template: Figure 7


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To-be portfolio

Description: represents the list of applications or future services by identifying their

source, launch date, list of the participants involved by analyzing the application or

service, as well as the associated business objectives, and information on evaluating

and prioritizing investments. Then there are the proposed classification matrix and the

connection with the portfolio as-is applications, if they exist.

Purpose: the purpose of the portfolio of the to-be applications and services is to

support the information associated with each application and its relationship with

business objectives and the as-is applications. There must be at least one relationship

with a business objective.

Where it is used: it is used in the IT process definition and is associated with the

technological view.

Template: Figure 8


Applications and services portfolio

Description: the applications and services portfolio in this phase includes those that

have been identified in the portfolio of the to-be applications and services, and those

that remain in the as-is portfolio. This portfolio is linked to the business goal as it also

identifies the business process to use this application. It includes the launch date, the

people responsible in the business and the IT area for this application or service. It is

necessary to include the implementation document and to state planning and

development.

Purpose: this building block intends to document and prioritize the business entity’s

applications and services and characteristics.

Where it is used: this building block is used in the master plan phase and is

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associated with the technological view.

Template: Figure 9


Maturity model

Description: the maturity model building block is to identify the level of the business

entity’s maturity and IT maturity by identifying the selected criteria and the assigned

level. It is also important to identify the people responsible for assigning the attribute

level as various participants may have different perceptions of the alignment value, as

well as the date when the corresponding attribute is analyzed or reviewed, and the

level at which maturity is assigned. The last assigned level should be saved to see the

changes that have followed. It also defines the average level of the participant’s

criterion, where the average is between the values of the attributes at this level, as

well as in a networked organization, where collaborations among different

participants are made possible by IT, the average level of the network criterion

corresponding to the average value among all the participants for this particular

criterion.

Purpose: defines the maturity level of alignment to the business entity as the only

participant or all the participants in an extended or virtual enterprise.

Where it is used: in the IT definition stage process and is associated with the

application view.

Template: Figure 10


The new life-cycle phases will be incorporated into Table 5 as follows:


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On the other hand, new blocks can be integrated into the standard and may

relate to other building blocks. The proposed building blocks can be used as a

modelling language in the other enterprise architectures.

6. Case study

This proposal has been applied to a ceramic tile company. The company is made up of

3 production plants, a central warehouse and 28 selling points. The production plants

manufacture product lots following a make-to-stock strategy. One same product type

can be manufactured in any of the production plants. Orders are prepared in the

central warehouse to be dispatched and delivered to the selling points in accordance

with each selling point’s orders. The 3 production plants employ an ERP and other

applications: a specific production program, another program for forecast

calculations, and spreadsheets for production planning. In some cases, communication

among the various participants takes place through the application shared, and across

the network in other cases.

6.1 Identification phase

Collaborative order management was the selected business entity because it is a

critical process for the company. Information systems and information technology are

essential to support this process.

IT governance has been modelled through an organization unit and an

organization cell. Two organization cells were identified in the IT area: the IT Board

(composed of the CIO and the CFO organization units), and the Steering Committee

(composed of the CIO, the CFO, the external consultancy manager and the data

manager organization unit). Currently in the company, the CIO depends on the CFO.

6.2 Process conceptualization and IT conceptualization phase

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Business and IT conceptualization was carried out after identifying the business

entity. Such conceptualization has meant a change in the way the company defines the

strategy (without involving the IT area until now).

Several interviews with the managers appointed by the company were

conducted. The outcome of these interviews has been specified in the templates

associated with each building block.

The results of these interviews reveal the need of consistent and reliable

information for IT to support collaborative order management.

In addition to the company’s organizational structure, the information systems

and technologies department depends on the CFO, which limits most investments in

this area due to economic factors. IT is seen as business support and not as a

competitive advantage.

The business conceptualization template appointed by IE-GIP and IT

conceptualization template appointed in this proposal were completed.

Not all the organization units from the business and IT area contributed to

conceptualization as expected; defining alignment heuristics has enabled the

identification of those aspects that were not well resolved in conceptualization.

On the other hand, the strategic dependencies model was employed to identify

and represent the dependencies between business and IT which, in turn, enabled them

to represent the responsibilities shared between two or more stakeholders.

The strategic dependencies model has helped identify dependencies between

actors, which have allowed the detection of bottlenecks and vulnerabilities. Thus, the

dependencies between two actors are modelled without having to analyze the actions

carried out by each depending actor to meet the dependency objective (objective,

resource or task).

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• First, we had to identify the actors involved, as follows: • Suppliers

• Manufacturers

• Distributors

• Customers (including retailers and end customers)

Besides, the inclusion of a new actor has been proposed, this being the

computer system (IT) which, in turn, includes the information system and the

technology to be used. In this way, the strategic relationship with IT could be

represented.

In a first analysis, the company identified approximately 12 strategic

relationships that enabled the following analysis:

The objective “to facilitate coordination and collaboration” is the same

objective met by the IT, but a number of dependency relationships participate with

different actors. This enables the identification of IT as a bottleneck since the actor

depends on various dependency relations.

• On the other hand, we identified the “Customer” actor as a vulnerable actor

because it is a dependent actor involved in too many dependencies. The same

applies to “Manufacturers”.

This analysis has proved very useful to detect the exact situation of this

company, which has been identified through the strategic dependency model. This

model firstly shows the importance of the IT area, and secondly its proper

functioning; thus, both Manufacturers and Customers may not achieve their objectives

and meet their expectations because of other actors.

6.3 IT process definition phase

Traditionally, the relationship between the applications and business processes comes

about at the requirements definition level, and not at the strategic level.

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Having an ERP system is considered crucial for the company and of a high

strategic importance. The current system is negatively impacting the company’s

ability to grow and it does not meet the business needs.

The application and services portfolio has enabled the company to link the

enterprise business processes to applications and services at the macro level through

goals. This has also allowed applications to be prioritized.

After analyzing the current situation (as-is), the analysis of the future situation

(to-be) was done. Replacing the old system with a new ERP that integrates the

remaining applications was proposed in the selling points.

An example of an instance of the to-be portfolio template is shown below in

Figure 11. This template depicts the business objectives to be achieved in the business

entity through deploy of the ERP system.


The maturity model has allowed a detailed analysis of the alignment between

business and IT. Values from 1 to 5 were allocated, where 1 represents the lowest

value. For this particular case, 43 attributes were identified and classified as 6 criteria.

The company’s result was below 2, which represents an emerging alignment;

this encourages the company to improve certain aspects. Furthermore, being able to

save the obtained values enables the firm to know its evolution.

6.4 IT Master plan

The action plan document was generated in this phase. This document reflects

the work undertaken in previous phases, as well as that delivered to the management

team to validate continuity. This phase will also consider prioritization, as well as the

investment planning services and applications based on the portfolio (as-is and to-be),

as defined in the previous phase.

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At this point, the company will continue with the requirements definition

phase. Thanks to the element proposed herein, the company under study has improved

its alignment between both the business and IT strategies. Among other benefits, we

can summarize that the application of this proposal has allowed the company to define

new decision makers in the IT area at the strategic level, and know how to coordinate

and integrate the different plans with other business strategic decision makers. This

definition has improved the information exchanged and information processing. The

application and service portfolio building block have allowed applications and

services to be documenting and prioritized in accordance with IT decision makers’

requirements and business needs.

Different reports from the company and external interviews have allowed us to

assess how the decisions made at the strategic level have successfully led to the

organization achieving its objectives.

7. CONCLUSIONS

This paper has identified the necessary components to model the IT strategy and

enhance the alignment of IT and business strategies. The elements defined by building

blocks by following an enterprise engineering approach, and described according to

ISO 15704, are: IT conceptualization, alignment heuristics and the strategic

dependencies model (used in the IT conceptualization phase); as-is portfolio, to-be

portfolio and maturity model (used in the IT process definition phase); applications

and services portfolio (used in the master plan phase). The proposal put forward has

been developed and guided by the need to incorporate the IT strategy into enterprise

architecture frameworks.

The utilization of building blocks enables them to be integrated with other

enterprise modelling constructs and provides their definition with more flexibility.

Deleted: with

Deleted: the

Deleted: y.

Deleted: These elements have been defined by building blocks from using an

enterprise engineering approach

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The application performed in a ceramic tile company has helped validate the

usefulness of the proposed modelling framework. This proposal has also led to the

joint definition of IT and business strategic concepts.

This research work is part of ongoing research in the enterprise engineering

field. Future lines of work will address the integration of this proposal with

architecture measurement performance and its associated information system to make

alignment with the business strategy possible. Moreover, the analysis will be extended

to incorporate all the alignment sequences.

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Figure 1. Enterprise engineering and relationships (Cuenca, 2009)

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Figure 2. Strategic alignment model (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993)

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Figure 3. Life-cycle phase extension (Cuenca, 2009)

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Figure 4. IT conceptualization template

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Figure 5. Heuristic template

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Figure 6. Strategic dependencies model template

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Figure 7. As-is portfolio template

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Figure 8. To-be portfolio template

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Figure 9. Applications and services portfolio

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Figure 10. Maturity model template

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Figure 11: To-be portfolio template in the case study

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Table 1. Alignment sequence covered by enterprise architecture

Alignment Sequence

(Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993)

Enterprise Architecture

Anchor

Domain Pivot Domain

Impacted

Domain

Graphical

Notation

GERAM (IFIP-IFAC

Task Force, 1999)

IE-GIP (Ortiz et al.,

1999)

Zachman (Sowa and

Zachman, 1992).

TOGAF (Open Group,

2009)

EAP (Spewak, 1993)

IAF (Schekkerman, 2003)

FEAF (CIO, 1999)

DoD AF (2007)

B-SCP (Bleistein, 2006)

BITAM (Chen, 2005)

Business

Strategy

Organizational

Infrastructure

and Processes

IT

Infrastructure

and Processes

1

Strategy

Execution

Zachman (Sowa and

Zachman, 1992)

TOGAF (Open Group,

2009)

EAP (Spewak, 1993)

IAF (Schekkerman, 2003)

FEAF (CIO, 1999)

DoD AF (2007)

Business

Strategy

IT

Strategy

IT

Infrastructure

and Processes

2

Technology

Potential

IT

Strategy

Business

Strategy

Organizational

Infrastructure

and Processes

3

Competitive

Potential

Zachman (Sowa and

Zachman, 1992)

TOGAF (Open Group,

2009)

BITAM (Chen, 2005)

IT

Strategy

IT

Infrastructure

and Processes

Organizational

Infrastructure

and Processes

4

Service

Level

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Table 2. Involved domain

SAM quadrants

(Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993 )

Business IT

Enterprise

Architecture Strategy

Organizational

Infrastructure

and Processes

Strategy IT Infrastructure

and processes

GERAM Identification

Conceptualization

Requirements

Design

Implementation

Requirements

Design

Implementation

IE-GIP

Identification

Business

Conceptualization

Business Process

definition

Master plan

Requirements

Design

Implementation

Requirements

Design

Implementation

ZACHMAN Objectives / Scope Business

Owner’s view

Objectives /

Scope

Architect’s view

Builder’s view

TOGAF Vision Business

Architecture

Information

Systems

Architecture

Application

Architecture

Technology

Architecture

EAP

Planning Initiation

Business

Modelling

Data

Architecture

Current

systems and

technology

Applications

Architecture

Technology

Architecture

Implementation/

Migration Plans

Planning Conclusion

IAF Contextual Layer

Conceptual Layer

Logical Layer

Physical Layer

Contextual

layer

Conceptual

Layer

Logical Layer

Physical Layer

FEAF Business

Architecture

Business

Architecture

Information

Architecture

Information Systems

Architecture

Data Architecture

HW, SW and

communications

DoDAF Operational View Operational

View System View Technical View

B-SCP Context

Business strategy

Business

Process IS description

BITAM Business model Business

architecture

Business

model

Business architecture

IT architecture

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Table 3. IT strategy components according to various authors

IT Strategy

Components

References Sco

pe

Cap

abil

ity

an

d

Sk

ill

Go

ver

nan

ce

Po

rtfo

lio

Mat

uri

ty

Mo

del

Dat

a S

trat

egy

Adam et. al, 1995

Avila et al., 2009

Buchanan and Gibb, 1998 ; 2007

Clempner and Gutierrez, 2002

Derzsi and Gordijn 2006

Gad, 2005

Goethals et al., 2007

Gutierrez et al., 2006

Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993

Gindy et al., 2008

Goedvolk, 1999

Jonkers et al., 2004

Kaplan and Norton, 1996

Lankhorst, 2004

Leonard, 2007

Lindström, 2006

Luftman, 2000

Maes, 1999 and Maes et al., 2000

Melville et al., 2004

Newkirk and Lederer, 2006

Panetto et al., 2007

Santana et al., 2008

Simonsson and Ekstedt, 2005

Sledgianowski and Luftman, 2005

Weill and Broadbent, 1998

Formatted Table

Deleted: Clempert, 2002

Comment [l1]: New IJCIM reference

has been included

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llanos

New IJCIM reference has been included

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Table 4. IT components and the associated building block

IT Components Building Block

Scope IT Conceptualization

Capability and skill Role (CEN 19440, 2007)

Capability Set (CEN 19440, 2007)

Governance Organization Cell (CEN 19440, 2007)

Organization Unit (CEN 19440, 2007)

Portfolio Application Portfolio

Maturity model Maturity Model

Data Strategy IT Conceptualization

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Table 5. Incorporation of new life-cycle phases

Business IT

Enterprise

Architecture Strategy

Organizational

Infrastructure

and Processes

Strategy

IT

Infrastructure

and processes

IE-GIP

Identification

Business

Conceptualization

Business Process

definition

Master plan

Requirements

Design

Implementation

IT

Conceptualization

IT Process

definition

IT Master plan

Requirements

Design

Implementation

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